Overruns Boost Cost Of County Complex By $1 Million

March 3, 1992|By ANDREW MARTIN, Staff Writer

Architect mistakes and last-minute changes are expected to boost the cost of the Broward County Public Safety Complex by nearly $1 million and prolong construction by an extra four months, records show.

At its meeting today, the Broward County Commission will consider a $993,441 cost overrun for the new Broward Sheriff`s Office headquarters. It is the largest cost overrun on the project, which began in 1989.

The cost overrun includes $893,441 to install new electrical and fire- protection equipment on the building`s fourth floor and $100,000 to extend two interior stairwells to the roof of the building.

If approved, the Public Safety complex will be $4.3 million over its $28.2 million budget and 307 days behind schedule. And more cost overruns are expected before the project is finished.

The opening is now scheduled for October.

The extra costs will be paid for with money generated from bond issues, not property taxes, said Birney Pease, director of the county`s Bond Program Office, which is overseeing the project.

Regardless, county commissioners said they will demand an explanation.

``It`s sort of like a comedy of errors,`` Commissioner Ed Kennedy said. ``In government, you never seem to know who screwed up. In this instance, it`s a large enough screw-up that we`re going to want to know the specifics.``

Commissioner Lori Parrish said she was blindsided by the latest cost overrun because she had been assurred that the worst of the problems were over.

``It seems like the problem keeps exacerbating,`` Parrish said.

Sheriff`s spokesman Maj. Ralph Page grumbled that building officials are now talking about scrapping the building`s helicopter pad and other features to cover the additional costs.

``They are eliminating things ... to make up these costs,`` Page said. ``(The sheriff) is not happy with it at all.``

The Public Safety Complex is being built at Broward Boulevard and Northwest 27th Avenue in an unincorporated area. It will house the Sheriff`s Office, county firefighters, paramedics and the emergency preparedness office.

The project has been beset by problems from the start, including the discovery of a landfill on the building site and continuing squabbles between the architect and county officials.

Pease said the changes on the fourth floor are needed to accommodate new computer equipment that was bought after construction started. The stairwells had to be altered because the architect`s plans did not meet government building codes, he said.

Leonard Hayet, a partner with the architecture firm Smith Korach Hayet Haynie, said the project costs so much more because it is constantly being changed to meet new technology.

``We feel like very little of it is our responsbility,`` he said. ``It`s been like a moving target. ... This job has been moved and varied since the beginning.``

``They are taking a lot of heat,`` Hayet said. ``But this building is state of the art.``